BASBANES, Nicholas
Third Printing. octavo, cloth in dust jacket. 638 pp. Henry Holt, From the prospectus: "The passion to possess books has never been more widespread or popular than it is today; indeed, obsessive book collecting remains the only hobby to have a disease named after it. A Gentle Madness is an adventure among the afflicted. Richly anecdotal and fully documented, it combines the perspective of historical research with the immediacy of investigative journalism. Above all, it is a celebration of books and the people who have revered, gathered, and preserved them over the centuries. Basbanes, a dedicated bibliophile himself, begins his extraordinary book 2, 500 years ago in Alexandria, when a commitment was made to gather all the world's knowledge beneath one roof. In a series of lively chapters, the continuum then passes through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to the 20 th Century, with special emphasis on book lore and book culture in Great Britain and North America. In the second half of A Gentle Madness, Basbanes offers a gallery of revealing profiles of living collectors and presents exclusive examinations of the great contemporary stories - the rare book thefts of Stephen Blumberg; 'institutional bibliomania' at the University of Texas; the mystery man who used $17 million of another person's money to gain recognition as the greatest book collector alive." Extensively illustrated. A very fine, clean, bright copy.
MORSHEAD, Sir Owen. Librarian to H. M. the King
First Edition. quarto, orange cloth with original clear acetate jacket, in original slipcase. 54 pp text, 64 pp plates, 2 pp. Phaidon Press, Philip S. Hench shared the Nobel Prize in 1950 in Medicine or Physiology. In this volume he has inscribed on the front endpaper, "This book was obtained from Sir Owen Morshead at Windsor Castle Wed. June 13, 1956. Presented to my son John Bixler Hench who was with me on this visit. from his dad, Philip S. Hench Windsor June 13, 1956." Heavily illustrated. Book very fine and clean, slipcase scuffed with one break. quarto, orange cloth with original clear acetate jacket, in original slipcase
FROST, Gary
First Edition. octavo, pictorial wrappers. 97 pp. The Legacy Press, We often speak of how a particular phenomenon has "reached a tipping point" - when knowledge and practice have developed in plain sight and then suddenly explodes on scene as a revolution in our thinking. Gary Frost's career with bookbinding, through his research, practice, and teaching, has been a series of such revolutions, and he has periodically named and defined how to evaluate and express the successive developments of the codex. The lynchpin in his work is ever the model - the why and how, generic, facsimile, or interpretive, material considerations and material compromises - all in the pursuit of an answer to these questions: What does the model tell us about book action in a given structure? What are the possibilities for adaptation? A Crafted Typology of the Codex is the summation of Frost's thinking, writing, and teaching on book action expressed though modelmaking . and it presents an exploration of codex chronology in both words and illustrations, and carries the ongoing discussion of the physical book into the electronic realm. From the "Preface" by Julia Miller. 52 illustrations in full color.
First Edition. quarto, pictorial boards. (268); (481); (415)pp. Christie's, Extensively illustrated in black and white and in color. From the library and with the bookplate of Dr. Eugene S. Flamm, neurosurgeon, bibliophile and former president of the Grolier Club. Part I is inscribed to Dr. Flamm from, and signed by, fellow book collector H. Richard Dietrich, Jr. Laid in is a 2pp. A.L.s. from Dietrich to Dr. Flamm dated 2 Feb. 1998. Spines of parts I & III faded, lower corners of part III bumped, else a very fine, clean set.
BYRD, Susan J.
First Edition. octavo, cloth in dust jacket. 412 pp. The Legacy Press, 490 images in-text, full color. Susan J. Byrd presents a comprehensive description of shifuâ"a Japanese textile woven from thread made with paper. This is complemented by an historical overview of the many uses of shifu through past centuries. Also included is detailed information about making the paper and thread from the sheet, spinning and weaving, as well as dyeing the thread and the finished textile with natural dyes. Appendices include artistic works created by internationally renowned artists, resources (suppliers, museums, and craftspeople/artists), and an extensive glossary in Japanese and English. Very fine, without flaw. Each copy has a sample of washi and of shifu created by the author.
WILTSHIRE, John
First Edition. octavo, grey boards in dust jacket. x, 293 pp. Cambridge University Press, Samuel Johnson has become known to posterity in two capacities: through his own works as the great literary essayist of the eighteenth century, and through Boswell's Life, as a man--notoriously a medical patient with a string of physical and psychological ailments. John Wiltshire brings the two together in this original study of Johnson the writer as "doctor" and patient. The subject of modern medical historians' case studies, Johnson also cultivated the acquaintance of doctors in his own day, and was himself a "dabbler in physic." Dr. Wiltshire illuminates Johnson's life and work by setting them in their medical context and also examines the importance of medical themes in Johnson's own writings. He discusses the many parts of Johnson's work touching on doctors, medicine, hospitals and medical experimentation, and analyzes the central theme, running throughout, of human suffering--in body and mind--and its alleviation. With the bookplate of Dr. Eugene S. Flamm, neurosurgeon, bibliophile and former president of the Grolier Club. A very finie, clean copy in a very fine dust jacket without flaw. octavo, grey boards in dust jacket
TODD, William B. and Ann Bowden
First Edition. octavo, cloth. 1,092pp. Oak Knoll Press, "Apart from what is essentially Scott, this bibliography further discloses his often anonymous reappearance in 164 anthologies and again, now indirectly, in countless printings deriving from his original work - in shabby chapbooks, grand suites of illustrations, operas, plays, and endless reams of sheet music. Thus any one Scott performance may have numerous consequences, totaling 60 or more entries cited here for a popular novel (Waverley, Rob Roy, Ivanhoe, The Pirate); at least 100 or so for several of the poetic romances; 199 entries for Marmion, and a rather astonishing count of 435 for The Lady of the Lake. From this larger perspective it may be argued that Scott's influence, immediate and remote, exceeded that of all other writers in the Romantic Era." Lacking dust jacket, else very fine.
DANSON, Lawrence
First Edition. octavo, cloth in dust jacket. xii, 264pp. Clarendon Press, "[Beerbohm's] essays turn into fiction as we read them, his fiction turns into parody, his parody into criticism, his criticism into caricature, his caricatures into essays. And all the while he is his own best literary caricature, the incomparable and impeccable 'Max'." Illustrated with photographs. Very fine copy, jacket not price clipped.
GRISSOM, C. Edgar
First Edition. quarto, cloth in dust jacket. 560 pp. + DVD-ROM. Oak Knoll Press, Descriptive bibliography of American writer Ernest Hemingway, documenting his work from 1923 through 2009. Provides edition, printing, issue, state, location, and description of all printings, editions, parent editions, plays, interviews, television productions, and films. Illustrated and indexed. DVD-ROM with more than 2,000 color illustrations, including more than 50 images of Hemingway's signature from 1908 to 1960. "And if your pulse quickens upon hearing that a new edition or printing or state has been discovered, then you should stop reading this review and lay hands on this new bibliography. You will find C. Edgar Grissom's Ernest Hemingway: A Descriptive Bibliography to be the welcome product of a persistent and inquiring mind. One gets the sense that he has chased the sometimes confounding details of his tome to their source--or else pursued them as far as we could have possibly followed ourselves, leaving us with a trustworthy reference tool that answers, but also asks, questions.Grissom adds two other major contributions to his descriptions and notes. The first is seven appendices including a chronology of Hemingway's life and signatures, an interpretation of Scribner's copyright page, a glossary of terms, and a selective listing of manuscripts. The second is a DVD-ROM containing lists of blurbs, reviews, epigraphs, interviews, adaptations, keepsakes, anthologies, translations, and more than 2000 color images of jackets, covers, and spines." Albert J. DeFazio, III. The Hemingway Review, vol. 31, no. 2, spring 2012.
A genuine fabric piece from the German Zeppelin L-49 that was shot down at Bour-Les-Bain, October 9, 1917, while making an air raid over London with seven other Zeppelins. On the morning of Oct. 19, 1917, 13 Zeppelins, including L49, were ordered to "attack middle England. Industrial region of Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, etc." With a crew of 19 and carrying 11,000 pounds of fuel, it set out with a payload of 4,410 pounds of bombs, of which 42 bombs were dropped. Following the raid, L49 was forced down in France near Bourbonne-les-Bains by French fighter planes. All crew members survived and were taken prisoners. Along with autograph letter from whom this example was acquired, Larry Jackson, describing other Zeppelin items he has for sale. Jackson mentions that his personal example of L49 fabric was acquired from Roland W. Richardson of the 213 American Flight Wing.
First American Edition. duodecimo, drab blue paper laid over drab grey cloth, with contemporary calf spines. Carey & Lea, Lacking the [4] pages of advertisements that sometimes appear in front of the title page of Volume One. With the (iii) - ix pp. Biographical Notice of the Author. Withdrawn from the New Hampshire private library of Portsmouth Athenaeum having their contemporary printed book label on front pastedown of each volume with a later red ink WITHDRAWN rubber stamp in the center. No other library marks in either book. Bindings shabby. Calf dried and chipped, corners rounded, 3/4" of the fore-edge of back blank endpaper neatly clipped off. Each volume with two loose gatherings. Pages fairly free of foxing, though with periodic brown stains (1 or 2 examples pictured - just a few pages in similar condition). Volume One has a 1 1/2" x 1/3" chip of the calf at the bottom of spine, most of the calf intact. Volume Two has a rough binding, which, although solid, has about 30% of the covering gnawed away, both the paper and the calf. duodecimo, drab blue paper laid over drab grey cloth, with contemporary calf spines
First American Edition. duodecimo, drab blue paper laid over drab grey cloth, with contemporary calf spines. Carey & Lea, Lacking the [4] pages of advertisements that sometimes appear in front of the title page of Volume One. Withdrawn from the New Hampshire private library of Portsmouth Athenaeum having their contemporary printed book label on front pastedown of each volume with a later red ink WITHDRAWN rubber stamp in the center. No other library marks in either book. Bindings shabby. Calf dried and chipped, corners rounded, 3/4" of the fore-edge of back blank endpaper neatly clipped off. Each volume with two loose gatherings. Pages fairly free of foxing, though with periodic brown stains (1 or 2 examples pictured - just a few pagaes in similar condition). Volume One has the calf heavily chipped, the blue paper worn, especially on the back cover,dime-size lower corner lacking from blank preliminary leaf, back free endpaper lacking. duodecimo, drab blue paper laid over drab grey cloth, with contemporary calf spines
